Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[674384f401ef7JosiahJack]

Could start upres'ing the textures right now if you wanted.  128x128 now, maybe go for 512x512 if you're ambitious.  Fox the edges, detailmaps, bump and all that.  Even do gloss maps too.

Unless 2D is not your thing.

I'm not bothering with all that.  I just want it to be better, stylized, and above all fun and playable.

[674384f402186Synaesthesia]

So I'd actually be working in 4k for each texture set, but I wouldn't stop at just 2D remastering. Like you, I clearly see 3D elements in each set and plan to create geo to replicate that detail in the way the developers originally saw it. I don't work in 512k, I work in 4k and downscale as-needed. Preferably this entire station would get redone with a minimum of 1k maps to an average of 2k, depending on asset and how detailed it needs to be.

I've been waiting on this for a while, and once this project is released I can definitely start working on it. I've got other things in mind first, but this might give you an idea of how much detail I'd put into it.

[674384f4022d0Vegoraptor]

I am not even sure if I should be amazed or terrified at this point.

[674384f4023dbJosiahJack]

That is impressive.  Is that all rendered in Unreal 4 or does Quixel have it's own renderer?  Is that some chromatic abberation I see there?

Ha!  I can see polygon corners on the spray can!  Otherwise it is very hard to tell if it isn't just photos.

[674384f4024d6Synaesthesia]

Every bit of that is in Unreal 4, no CA is rendered on the images that I recall. Runs like shit, but that's not the point.

The sooner I get a beta, the sooner I can start making Citadel come to life again!

[674384f402690JosiahJack]

A beta won't do you much good if you want to add in-game effects, normal maps, etc and play with different shaders....  Unity packages all game data in an amorphous blob of a file when you build the final game.  If you have Unity 2017.20f, you can clone the github repository and have literally everything up to the point of upload, which at the moment is about a week ago.  Then you can play around in-editor, open up the source blend files or plug in textures.

Unity is very very mod unfriendly.  It kinda sucks in that regard (for now  ).  There is at least as much work to make the game moddable as making it...to be done after I finish it to a point where I can release it.  I basically need to implement my own import functions for textures and models.

You can of course start making each wall section if you would like.  I've already started that a little bit, turning each wall/floor/ceil texture into a modular unit.

[674384f40283fSynaesthesia]

So what I'd need to start working is a scale reference. Specifically one of the wall chunks, since they're all the same size in-world. I can then apply any of the textures to that and build geo from it, then unwrap and texture it for physically-based rendering. Even if it isn't mod-friendly, I can always deliver the files to you as I work on them, if you're interested in using them to replace assets that exist currently. Thankfully, there aren't a huge number of textures in the game - I could probably knock a lot of this out in a few months of work and use it as a promo piece for the stuff we do at Quixel.

Of course, I could do the same for the weapons, props, and robots too! I'm not a character artist so someone else would need to work on that, but I could find someone to help. I have a personal project I'd like to finish first before I start any of this, which is creating the namesake robot from The Big O and having him stomp around New York City. Afterward, I'm totally up to dedicating some free time to this.

[674384f4029a8JosiahJack]

All scale is built to 2.56. One wall segment is 2.56 x 2.56 which corresponds to one wall texture of 128x128 from the origjnal game.  Unity says the value is in meters...important for the physX do its thing.  The player is about 2 or so tall, I can't recall the crouching and prone heights at the moment.

The level is therefore divided into 2.56 width cubes...with the exception of doors which I typically make 0.32 thick and offset side rooms accordingly.

Yes 2.56x2.56 is a conversion out of Quake engine units which were 128x128, texel for pixel into a size that made sense with the physics engine in Unity but also made it easy to scale everything from Quake into Unity by 0.04.

I learned from my Hohenzollern recreation project that scale is key in a re-creation.

[674384f402b3eJosiahJack]

Side note: While making Citadel highly realistic is not, nor has been, a focus of my project, I do highly condone and strongly encourage modding.

[674384f402e28JDoran]

JosiahJack, in Citadel, will the hidden games room be easier to find than it is in the original game? I admit that I never discovered it myself, I first learned about it from a forum post (on Gamefaqs, I think), and personally I do think it should be easier to find, especially since modern gamers might not be as dedicated and used to having to think for themselves as they would have been a quarter of a century back.

And will the snooker be playable this time? I don't see why the pool table was playable but not the snooker one, as surely the game physics and code was the same for both? Mind you, you couldn't play darts either, though the darts board was so low res that you wouldn't have known where to aim if you didn't play the game in real life, I suppose.

And will you add working arcade games to it in your version? It was a little disappointing that the arcade cabinets weren't interactive, though since they all had the same bezel/colouring/artwork on them, then according to in-game logic they might have all played the same game anyway. Would it be possible/practical to put MAME on them, or more realistically, one MAME game on each arcade machine? Some might say that that would be too small a number of games, I suppose, but in the original the games room was just an Easter egg, so in Citadel it probably shouldn't be this whole tons-of-games-you-can-play room, just the four arcade cabinets, snooker, pool and darts (is it possibe to have a good, fun darts game on a computer?).

Anyway, if you do decide to make the four arcade cabinets playable, my personal suggestions for the game are:

Pacman,
Donkey Kong,
Space Invaders,
Mr. Do!

as I think that they represent the early spirit and originality of the arcade era. Though maybe Looking Glass intended the arcade cabinets to be (in System Shock's universe) running up to date arcade games, of the 207's.

[674384f402f28JosiahJack]

I have no idea what you are talking about.  What hidden games room?  What arcade cabinets?

Is this some kinda april fools

[674384f403398JDoran]

I have no idea what you are talking about.  What hidden games room?  What arcade cabinets?

Is this some kinda april fools

Yeah, sorry. I was bored at work (I wasn't even supposed to be in, and no, they didn't get me there for an April fool* ) so I was on the 'net and posted the above. Don't tell ZylonBane though, he's now frantically searching for the room, desperate not to be the only one who's never found it!



* Or maybe it was a April fool's joke, maybe all the popular people were down the pub laughing at me!

[674384f4034f9JosiahJack]

Well, ZB can at least look for the way into the blocked off area on deck 6, the west wing of the living quarters.  And find the secret closet within a closet on level 5.

[674384f403613JosiahJack]

I am going to Mexico this week on business so I won't be able to get anything done on Citadel during this week.  FYI.

[674384f4039e5Olfred]

Have fun

[674384f403ce6unn_atropos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SzOUvB1WSg

 

[674384f403e16JosiahJack]

Look, quality of life. Save on quit...to main menu.  Only quit to desktop from the main menu.  Ah the little things.  This plus direct access to options from in-game pause.

[674384f403f72Gawain]

Looks nice!
Do you have any screenshots with enhanced wall textures?

[674384f4040b4JosiahJack]

Not yet...not until the game is playable or I get the urge to do a room or something.

[674384f404262JosiahJack]

Quick update blurb:
Added scattered papers model.
Added hardware inventory list to hardware tab in center MFD.
Fixed bug where viewmodels would get scrunched during crouching or prone.
Fixed a few MFD reference bugs.
Protected against some null reference scenarios.
Added the compass in the HUD with varying levels of tick marks that are version dependent.
Added grenade usage for throwing grenades (inv mode only currently, need to link in hotkey)
Added "live" cursor text for when holding a live grenade.
Added mouse-over cursor change to an arrow when above the MFD tab buttons.
Added tooltip style text next to mousecursor when over MFD tab buttons.
Added email inventory list similar to log list but not linked to anything yet.
Fixed bug when first using puzzle panels and keycode pads where initialization failed to occur in some instances.
Fixed a few more bugs related to MFD initialization on first item pickup.
Fixed MFD initialization when first searching.
Changed some constant variable references to refer to the global Const.a instance for consistency.
 

[674384f404356JosiahJack]

155days...hmm I estimate only needing 81.5 days.  Should give me time for testing and the inevitable bugfixing.

[674384f404471JosiahJack]

Lights 100% !!


P.S. Don't mind the pink, just a few material references to fix up and a few screens that need linked to the security cameras.

[674384f4046f5Marvin]

[674384f404869JosiahJack]

Doors 100% !

Was messing with Trello: https://trello.com/b/zgeRe7tN/citadel-the-system-shock-fan-remake

It's fun to use.  I've been planning out my work as I push to the first playable release.

Off to Mexico on business again for the next 2 weeks.